Penrose-Ward correspondence

A holomorphic vector bundle on an appropriate twistor domain, trivial on its space-time incidence lines, determines a complex anti-self-dual gauge gauge connection. Split its patching matrix on each line and apply the tangent vector fields ${\pi }^{A^{\prime }}{\partial }_{A{A}^{\prime }}$. They annihilate the unsplit twistor patching matrix, so the two logarithmic derivatives of the factors agree and define a global degree-one function of $\pi$. It is consequently ${\pi }^{A^{\prime }}{A}_{A{A}^{\prime }}$. The inverse splitting bundle frame is parallel along each alpha-plane; commuting these parallel equations proves that the primed gauge curvature two-component spinor vanishes. Reality conditions recover unitary Euclidean gauge fields; Euclidean instanton bundles need triviality on the real twistor lines, not on every possible complex line.

On a twistor line use ${\pi }_{0^{\prime }}=\zeta ,{\pi }_{1^{\prime }}=1$ and ${\omega }^A=x^{A{0}^{\prime }}\zeta +x^{A{1}^{\prime }}$. For a degree-zero holomorphic patching logarithm, its Laurent series splits as $h_0=-{\sum }_{n\ge 0}{f}_n{\zeta }^n$, $h_1={\sum }_{n<0}{f}_n{\zeta }^n$. The twistor incidence relation implies ${\partial }_{A{0}^{\prime }}{f}_n={\partial }_{A{1}^{\prime }}{f}_{n-1}$. Hence $(-{\partial }_{A{0}^{\prime }}+\zeta {\partial }_{A{1}^{\prime }})h_{\alpha }={\partial }_{A{1}^{\prime }}{f}_{-1}$ on both patches. The gauge potential is $A_{A{0}^{\prime }}=-{\partial }_{A{1}^{\prime }}{f}_{-1}$, $A_{A{1}^{\prime }}=0$. Exponentiating the two additive factors produces the linewise holomorphic splitting of $e^f$.

The Abelian Ward splitting by Laurent series gives this gauge potential through the Cauchy integral formula, with $f_{,B}=\partial f/\partial {\omega }^B$ evaluated on the twistor line. The integrand has total projective degree zero. Holding the contour fixed locally and differentiating gives $F_{A{A}^{\prime }B{B}^{\prime }}={ϵ}_{A^{\prime }{B}^{\prime }}(2\pi i{)}^{-1}{\oint }_{\Gamma }{f}_{,AB}{\pi }_{D^{\prime }}d{\pi }^{D^{\prime }}$, using ${\pi }_{A^{\prime }}{\iota }_{B^{\prime }}-{\pi }_{B^{\prime }}{\iota }_{A^{\prime }}={ϵ}_{A^{\prime }{B}^{\prime }}({\iota }_{C^{\prime }}{\pi }^{C^{\prime }})$. Its unprimed two-component spinor is symmetric, so the primed gauge curvature vanishes and the field obeys the anti-self-dual Maxwell equations. These signs use ${ϵ}_{0^{\prime }{1}^{\prime }}=1$, ${ϵ}^{0^{\prime }{1}^{\prime }}=-1$ and raising by left multiplication; other consistent raising conventions can reverse both displayed overall signs.

On a twistor domain containing the lines $L_x$ for $x$ in a space-time domain $U$, the Ward construction uses a holomorphic vector bundle $E$ with $E{|}_{L_x}\cong {\mathcal{O}}^{\oplus r}$ for every $x\in U$. A degree-zero restriction is not sufficient: $\mathcal{O}(1)\oplus \mathcal{O}(-1)$ has degree zero but is not holomorphically trivial. A trivial restriction has $r$ independent global holomorphic sections; their evaluations give a linewise bundle frame and hence a factorization of its patching matrix. Nearby factors can be chosen holomorphically because $H^1({\mathbb{CP}}^1,\mathcal{O}{)}^{r^2}=0$. Lines on which the splitting type is nontrivial are called jumping lines and obstruct this regular reconstruction there. For a globally regular field on affine complexified Minkowski space the condition is needed on all its incidence lines; on a smaller domain only those lines are required.

A bundle trivial on a twistor line has a global holomorphic bundle frame there. Comparing it with the given two patch bundle frames produces invertible matrices $H,\tilde{H}$, holomorphic on their respective affine patches, with $F=\tilde{H}{H}^{-1}$. The obstruction to varying such a bundle frame locally with space-time is $H^1({\mathbb{CP}}^1,\mathcal{O}{)}^{n^2}=0$, so the splitting factors can be chosen holomorphically in a neighbourhood. If two splittings differ by $H\mapsto Hg$ and $\tilde{H}\mapsto \tilde{H}g$, then $g$ is holomorphic on the compact complex projective line and hence independent of its projective coordinate. It is the space-time gauge freedom.